Benjamin Franklin once said that ‘in this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes’. However, if he was alive today, I believe that he would have added Newcastle United fans attending Newcastle matches in droves to his quote.
Last year, despite their poor showings throughout the 2015/16 Premier League campaign, Newcastle still had a very impressive average home attendance of 49571; this made them the 13th most supported team in the whole of Europe.
So far this season, Newcastle have had five home matches and the lowest attendance recorded was 48,209; this was for the game against Reading on the 17th August. The highest recorded attendance so far is the whopping 52,117 who were present for Newcastle’s game against Wolves on the 17th September. The other three home matches have had attendances of 52,079 (Huddersfield), 49,196 (Brighton) and 48,236 (Norwich). Overall, this means that Newcastle’s average home attendance this season is 49,967.
The reason for the two lower attendances of 48,209 and 48,236 is clearly the fact that these games were played mid-week.
If we look at Newcastle’s fixtures leading up to the New Year, we will see that 6 out of their 7 next home fixtures will be played on a Saturday at 3 pm. The odd one out is the Monday night Boxing Day fixture against Sheffield Wednesday (Boxing Day matches are always well attended). This means that we should definitely see seven home matches where the attendance at St. James’ Park is over 50000.
If Newcastle’s average home attendance stays at its current figure of 49,967 then this means that come the end of the season, St. James’ Park will have seen a whopping 1,149,241 fans walk through its turnstiles (49,967 x 23 home matches). This would undoubtedly make Newcastle United one of the most watched teams in Europe. This a remarkable feat considering Newcastle are in the second tier of English football.
Could any other team in the world generate so much support whilst playing in the second tier? I sincerely doubt it!
